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2.5 gal guppy breeder pico


jojopus

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Hi all,


After a long absence from nano reefing I am finally getting back into the hobby. As you can see from my profile I was a member way back in the day when Chris first started NR.com. I used to keep a 20 Long nano reef filled with zoanthids, mushrooms and other various softies as well as one or two stony corals. The tank was up and running for about 5 years. I parted it out after having a second child, as I didn't have as much time (and money) to dedicate to the tank. You can see some shots of it in my gallery if you like.


I knew I wouldn't be able to resist getting a tank forever although 10 years is a long time to wait. Now that my boys are a lot older I can dedicate some time to a new tank again.


Once I decided I wanted to get back into nano reefing the first thing to do was decide on a tank size. While browsing Petsmart one day a little 2.5 gallon guppy breeder caught my eye. I think I liked it because its dimensions where basically the same as a scaled down 20 long. I always liked the look of a long shallow tank.


I decided to go for a very minimalist approach and go with live rock and sand as the only filtration and keep up with religious weekly water changes of about 40% for nutrient export and to reintroduce trace elements back into the tank. Besides, my old CPR Bakpak wont fit on that little tank. ;-)


The biggest change in the hobby that I have seen is the move towards using LED lighting. There are a lot of options and it is damned near as daunting as it ever was to choose the right light to fit the budget. I decided to go simple at first and found a 20k 16 watt HO Wave Point fixture for a pretty good price. The corals have thus far have done well under that light with good expansion and growth. What I don't like about it is that it is VERY blue. Too blue for my taste. I did a little more research recently and decided to pull the trigger on a high quality full spectrum LED fixture and ended up ordering a Mini Tide from Dave Fason over at nanobox. The fixture should be here Monday.


Here are the specs so far


Water Parameters:

Salinity: 1.025

Temp: 80F

Amm: 0

Nitrate: 0

40% weekly water change using Instant Ocean Reef Crystals


Equipment:

2.5 gallon guppy breeder tank - 17"x"5x7"

Wave Point 16 watt HO LED on a 9 hour photoperiod - nanobox Mini Tide arriving next week

Rio 180

Aqueon 25 watt heater - going to pick up a hydor 25 watt, as they are 5 inches shorter

Cobalt Aquatics 50 watt neo-therm


Current Livestock:

6 lbs Live rock

2 lbs live sand

1 Peppermint shrimp

4 blue leg hermits

1 mithrax crab

Xenia

Kenya Tree

Mushrooms

Acanthastrea

Seriatapora

GSP

various hitch hikers - bristleworms, stomatella snails and a serpent star.


I plan on adding the following livestock and leaving it alone for a while:

Seriatapora

GSP

Tubipora


Here are a few pictures


The beginning


Tank start - 2/20/2016



with live rock added


Tank after liverock



mushroom


Purple Mushroom



Kenya


Kenya Tree



Peppermint shrimp


Peppermint Shrimp



Xenia


Xenia



Current full tank shot


Full Tank - 4/16/2016




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You going to add guppies? Or why is it called 2.5 gallon guppy breeder pico

 

It's just the name for the standard dimensions of the tank (low and long rather than a standard 2.5 gallon tank.) You could put some balloon mollies in there if you wanted lol

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Correct, it's a tank specifically made for guppy breeding. It has notches in the rim so that glass plates that came with the tank can be inserted to seperate the fry from the adults.

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You maybe on to something there, jedimasterben. I'll give you full credit when I make millions. No money, just credit.

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Some new shots under the new Nanobox Mini Tide. This light is the Shizz and Dave Fason over at Nanoboxreef is a stand up guy who makes a great product that he stands behind.

 

FTS

FTS

Xenia Tide

 

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Thanks, Yoshii. The Xenia stalks are tan, but when the light is on them at it's brightest between 12-3 ish, they have a bluish tinge on the inner side of the polyp stalks.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Some recent shots. I've been in touch with Phuong over at Oceanbox about a custom AIO tank to replace this one. Just need a couple months to save the necessary funds. It will be a similar style in that it will be long and shallow but with the AIO inserts to help surface skimming and to hide unsightlies like the heater, powerheads and other such nonsense that are cluttering my current build. it will also be 5.5 gallon as opposed to 2.5 so ill be gaining a bit of space to work with.

 

Anyways, here are the pics. They were shot with the cam from an LG GPadF8. Not too bad, but nothing like some of the shots I've seen on here with high quality cameras.

 

Seriatopora macro

Sarcophyton macro

GSP Macro

Capnella macro

Full Tank 5/28/2016

 

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This is a really cool little tank! I'm almost disappointed that you're upgrading to a bigger aio :)

 

Phuong does great work, though, and I think the new tank will be beautiful!

 

How's that little toadstool doing? I've thought about getting one in my old pico but always worried it would get too big.

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Thanks Teenyreef. The tank will be very similar actually. It will still be 18 inches long and 7 inches high but I am increasing the width from 6 inches to 10 to make room for a corner AIO. The tank will also be rimless so it will be much cleaner.

 

The toadstool is doing great. Its showing great polyp extension and has grown in diameter as well.

 

btw, love the 4 gallon picoparadise. bloody amazing.

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Thanks Teenyreef. The tank will be very similar actually. It will still be 18 inches long and 7 inches high but I am increasing the width from 6 inches to 10 to make room for a corner AIO. The tank will also be rimless so it will be much cleaner.

 

The toadstool is doing great. Its showing great polyp extension and has grown in diameter as well.

 

btw, love the 4 gallon picoparadise. bloody amazing.

Thank you! I'm looking forward to seeing your new tank, it should be beautiful :)

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  • 5 weeks later...
New inhabitant. Purple and green Acan.
Recent developments: Ordered a custom AIO aquarium from Phuong at Oceanbox Designs. It will be a bit of a wait as I'm not the first in line. Based on what I have seen from his previous work I know it will be worth the wait.

Acanthastrea

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
New FTS at roughly 6 months. Not much has changed except the addition of the Acanthastrea. Its grown 3 new heads since I got it 2 weeks ago. You cant see them in the photo as they are on the back of the plug. Not sure if that's normal, but I feed it Rod's Food original every day. http://www.rodsfood.com/original.html


I'm also finally seeing lots of coralline algae growth all over the place. You can also see quite a bit of it on the top of the power head nozzle.


The only other new addition is a Cobalt Aquatics 50 watt Neo-Therm heater. This thing is a beast and keeps the water temperature rock solid all the time. The slim profile is much better than the Aqueon I had. I also tried a Hydor but I could never get it to keep the water anything but 83 degrees even when the dial was set 79.


FTS 7/19/2016



Zoomed out FTS showing a little more of the room it's in...


FTS Room 7/19/2016


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How are you dealing with evaporation with no lid? Daily top offs?

Yep, not an exact science... I just eyeball it everyday. I'll invest in a micro ATO one of these days. Probably after I upgrade the tank.

 

How's the light upgrade treating you ?

Well worth the money I paid for it. All inhabitants seem to be doing well under it. Even the seriatopora is growing and staying nice and pink.

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  • 1 month later...

Came home a few days ago from work to find my nice little Seriatopora was eaten by someone in the tank. I have seen the Peppermint Shrimp picking at my Acan once or twice so im gonna assume it was him. Once I get the new tank from Phuong ill just remove him and get store credit where I bought him. Might get rid of the Emerald crab as well just to be sure and stick with my original 4 hermits for a CUC. Also having a little issue with my GSP that doesn't seem to have anything to do with predation, will post that in a separate thread to so if I can get some advice....

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